


it would complicate the situation

by emjee (MerryHeart)



Series: life is a gradual series of revelations [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, but they absolutely refuse to talk about it, fuck buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:14:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29168652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/emjee
Summary: In which Yusuf and Nicolò avoid dealing with the fact that "just once, to get it out of our systems" has not gone as planned.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: life is a gradual series of revelations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2141256
Comments: 52
Kudos: 525





	it would complicate the situation

**Author's Note:**

> This one owes its title, epigraph, and inspiration to ["We Should Definitely Not Have Sex Right Now"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ9ea-hbQw4), with a dash of ["Strip Away My Conscience"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcmErbAsI7I) for morally fraught horniness.

_It’s the adult thing not to have sex right now; we have the common sense not to have sex right now._

“Fuck, that’s good.” Yusuf can’t help groaning as Nicolò pushes into him, slow and slick and just the right side of too much. He braces a foot against the mattress and tangles a hand in Nicolò’s hair before closing his eyes. Maybe, if he concentrates on the sensation of Nicolò fucking him like they’ve got all day, he’ll forget to be hung up on the fact that, against all his better judgement, they’re still doing this.

*

A week after the first time, they reach Aleppo, and something in Yusuf’s chest expands a bit. He’s a city creature at heart, loves traveling to as many as he can on business for his—well. Loved traveling.

He’s still traveling, he reminds himself, just for different reasons. And with different company.

He keeps catching himself looking at Nicolò for a little too long. To his knowledge, Nicolò’s only caught him once, and he didn’t say anything, just gave Yusuf a look that said “what are you doing?” It’s the exact look Yusuf would give himself if he could find a looking glass.

They secure lodgings and food and darken the door of a bathhouse for the first time in longer than Yusuf would like to think about. He steadfastly does not look at Nicolò’s mostly-naked body as they sit in the steam room, and then wonders if Nicolò notices that, too.

And then they’re back in their room, clean and well-fed and exhausted, and the sky is darkening, and Yusuf still isn’t satisfied.

He isn’t _proud_ of himself. He shouldn’t be considering Nicolò even if he was the last man on earth—yet it’s Nicolò he wants, wants his beautiful body and his talented mouth (a master of a craft must be willing to acknowledge another’s mastery, Yusuf believes). Wants him, even with the full knowledge that his past is bloody and his personal history of terrible decisions is distressing in its magnitude.

Yusuf has his own personal history of terrible decisions, though his are much smaller in scale. He is about to add to it. “Nicolò.”

“I’m asleep.”

“Liar.”

“You call your own brother in arms a liar?”

“Since when are we brothers in arms.”

“We fought off those bandits on the road out of Damascus, and we haven’t killed each other in months.”

“Hardly a solid foundation for an alliance,” Yusuf replies, although he knows many an alliance has been built on less. They do share a number of qualities, after all. Their apparent inability to die. Their preference for men. Their devotion to the God of Abraham—although, Yusuf is quick to remind himself, his has never led him to join an invading army. “I can’t believe I still want to sleep with you,” he groans.

Nicolò does not respond right away. Yusuf is about to turn over and pretend he never said anything when he hears Nicolò murmur, “I thought you said only once.”

“I did.”

“You said it was like a fever.”

“It appears I am still ill.”

He feels the mattress shift as Nicolò rolls to face him. “Are you, now?”

Yusuf turns his head, which brings his face much closer to Nicolò’s than he’d realized it would. “I'm burning for you.” His voice is so quiet he can barely hear himself.

Nicolò hears him, though. Or Nicolò doesn’t but still infers correctly; it doesn’t matter. He closes the gap between his mouth and Yusuf’s and they’re kissing, thank God, they’re kissing again, how did he manage to wait an entire week without suggesting—

_Pride_ , he reminds himself. _Principles_.

But it doesn’t have to mean anything, he immediately decides. It _doesn’t_ mean anything. He’s had a very stressful time of it and a bit of pleasure isn’t something he’s going to beat himself up for. He is sure, in this moment, with Nicolò’s tongue slipping into his mouth, that he’ll still believe that in the morning.

“I washed,” he manages between kisses. “At the bathhouse.”

“I noticed. You smell much better.”

He pinches Nicolò’s ass, which does not seem to have the punitive effect he was going for. “You are the last man alive who is allowed to judge the smell of other men. And I meant,” he slings a leg over Nicolò’s hip, pulls him in even closer, “that I _washed_. Very thoroughly.”

Nicolò stills. “Oh. Would you like me to fuck you?”

“If that’s something you do.”

“It is.” There’s a hint of a smirk, both on Nicolò’s face and in his tone of voice. Insufferable. This had better be good.

They both sit up and reach over the edge of the bed for their respective bags.

“What are you doing?” Yusuf asks, as his fingers close around a vial of oil.

“Trying to make this good for you.” He sound irritated, and when Yusuf turns back to look at him he finds Nicolò holding—an identical bottle of oil.

Yusuf’s mind runs through several replies, and the one his mouth settles on is, “It seems I’m not the only one who’s feverish.”

Nicolò sighs. “Do you want to talk or do you want to fuck?”

It’s not a tender question, but it also doesn’t come out as harsh as it could have. Also, as it happens, Yusuf emphatically does not want to talk about this.

“Fuck.”

“Then come here.”

As it turns out, the smirk might be insufferable, but it isn’t undeserved.

*

They stay in Aleppo for a month, and they go through several vials of oil.

Yusuf reaches for Nicolò almost every night, and sometimes in the middle of the day, if they’re in their room escaping the heat. Nicolò never reaches for him, but he always comes willingly. They don’t always fuck, either—sometimes it’s mouths, sometimes hands, sometimes just rubbing up against each other, which shouldn’t feel so _good_.

But it does, and they keep doing it, and they don’t talk about it. Which is fine. That’s what Yusuf wants.

“Do you think,” Nicolò asks one evening, after they’ve had their pricks in each other’s mouths at the same time, “that this fever will be burned out once we leave Aleppo?”

“I don’t know,” Yusuf says, because he doesn’t.

They’ve talked about what they should do next, settled on continuing to travel for a bit, offering what help they can where it’s needed. There are certain risks they don’t have to be as concerned about anymore, it seems, and that puts them in a position to do some good.

Sometimes Yusuf wonders if Nicolò keeps a ledger in his mind, an account page overrun with red. He doesn’t ask.

*

When they set out on the road again they make their way vaguely toward Baghdad, allowing themselves to get sidetracked along the way as the situation demands, scarcely keeping their hands off each other when they’re alone. Their bedrolls still lie at opposite ends of their tent, but they share for at least part of the night more often than not. Yusuf learns how it feels to have his body flush hot even when he’s standing in a river, what it’s like to fuck on the ground after fighting off robbers, blood still on his face.

By necessity they stop whenever they join a group of travelers or stay a few days in the communities they pass through, but once they settle in Baghdad it begins all over again. Except now, sometimes, Nicolò does the reaching.

*

It’s a mild night, the sky is a rich, dark blue, and Nicolò knows he shouldn’t be doing this.

“Fuck, that’s good.” Yusuf groans and Nicolò feels him shift, his foot pushing flat against the mattress for better leverage. His head tips back and Nicolò can’t help himself, he ducks his head and sucks at the exposed skin of Yusuf’s neck, and it makes him feel more drunk than wine ever has.

Nicolò has learned that he is a weak man and a thorough sinner—not because of the sodomy, which he hasn’t lost sleep over in years, but because he can’t bring himself to leave. He doesn’t deserve the joy of pleasuring Yusuf’s body, of receiving pleasure from Yusuf in turn. And Yusuf doesn’t deserve to be afflicted with Nicolò’s presence, a constant reminder of events too terrible to speak of. Events Nicolò had a hand in bringing about.

He has also learned that the unfairness of the universe is more vast and pervasive than he could ever have imagined back at the monastery in Liguria, because in a fair world he is dead, he has made an account of his life before God and been found wanting. In a fair world Yusuf beds a better man.

But this is the world they have, and perhaps he can use his life such that he is not found wanting when it ends, and as long as Yusuf will have him in his bed, Nicolò will be there.

He cannot say any of this, of course, so he fucks Yusuf slow and deep and finds himself pulled down for a kiss as Yusuf comes, his mouth muffling any incriminating noises.

They fall asleep at their separate edges of the bed and wake up in the middle of the night wrapped around each other, half hard. Nicolò presses against Yusuf, light enough that he can blame the mattress if needed, but he then he feels a hand in his hair and a leg wedged between his own and it’s as if they haven’t just done this only hours before.

“Insatiable,” Yusuf mutters, and kisses him.


End file.
